"EAR INN tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE January 9, 1982": My 1st book was printed & bound by my 24th birthday on September 4, 1977.  It attained some attention in 1978 when Language Poets were exposed to it.  On January 9, 1982, I gave a reading at the EAR INN on Spring Street in NYC, at the instigation of Alan Davies.  Alan & I were both in our late 20s.  Jackson Mac Low, a proto-language-poet of sorts was also in attendance - he was 59.  I was on the same bill as Hannah Weiner, the poet renowned for her ability to read words on other people's foreheads.  Unfortunately, due to my usual reason of poverty, I didn't record Hannah's half of the reading.  There was no visual record made of the reading but I did audio record my part until the tape cut off in the midst of the "plenial wer" section.  I keep the entire recording intact in the spirit of respecting both the historical nature of it & to show the 'real-time'.  I'd hand-cut 60+ 4X6" file cards into one of my "Frame of Reference shapes" & hand-written sentences on them that I'd anticipated as things to say at the reading.  For the entire time I was in the bar, a couple of hours, I only read from the cards & other texts I'd brought with me.  Not all of the FoR cards were used in this 45:06 recording & I find many of them interesting - such as "MONTY!  I DIDN'T XPECT U 2 COME!" & "R U MAD AT ME?".  I was heavily invested in what I called "laughter onomatopoeia" such as "t he" for "the" & "t ha t" for that.  Since these were used on the cards it must've made understanding me somewhat difficult.  At any rate, my abundance of methods for expanding the possibilities for reading are clearly in evidence: audience participation to the extreme of having a volunteer kiss me while saying the word "pleasure" in 26 languages despite my announcing that I had HSV2 (although not in my mouth) AND a cold.  For me, at least, this was a substantial leap forward for my 28 year old self.  I was shy no more.  It was a great pleasure to meet Hannah Weiner & to witness her read.  She was truly special.  The blue of the background is from a VHS deck when it's stopped, the images are all relevant to the reading.  My girlfriend of the time, HANNAH AVIVA (aka Casandra von Rinteln), is even shown (albeit from a photo from about 13 months earlier).  HANNAH was another amazing person, now sorely missed.  - May 2, 2024 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE 

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